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© Mr Robert O. Caudwell
IoE Number:
267107
Location:
MURTRY AQUEDUCT,
BUCKLAND DINHAM, MENDIP, SOMERSET
Photographer:
Mr Robert O. Caudwell
Date Photographed:
16 August 1999
Date listed:
29 April 1983
Date of last amendment:
16 November 1984
Grade
II
NOTE - The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incoporate subsequent amendments to the list. For an updated version of the statutory list you should visit our LBOnline database http://lbonline.english-heritage.org.uk/Login.aspx
ST74NE GREAT ELM CP
MURTRY BOTTOM
7/161
Murtry Aqueduct
(previously listed in Buckland
Dinham and Selwood Civil Parishes)
29.4.83
- II
Former aqueduct carrying disused canal over Mells River. Aqueduct. C 1795. Doulting stone, sandstone coping to
parapets. Three arch span, supporting channel c 12 m wide and 1.75 m deep, and with c 17m run of retaining wall to the
East, on the South side of aqueduct. Flat segmental arches with clear span c 6.1 m and rise c 1.5 m with triple
projecting keystones and y-jointed voussoirs tapered in depth from crown to springing-point, set in rusticated
spandrels under flat projecting string. Above the string plain ashlar parapet c 1.7 m deep, coped with heavy sandstone
blocks with rounded saddleback profile moulded to outer face only. Between arches, trianglular cutwaters and at ends of
walling and between arches, v-jointed ashlared pilasters carried through full height. Maximum overall lenght of parapet
on South side c 38 m, and on North side c 21.5 m; river width c 20 m. This is one of very few structures remaining on a
branch of the proposed Dorset and Somerset Canal which was begun in the last decade of the C18, but abandoned in 1803.
Murtry Aqueduct is a good quality design with some architectural pretension; at the time of the survey, the arches,
spandrels and abutments appeared to be sound, apart from the loss of some voussoir stones at the cutwaters. The parapet
walling also looks sound, but the proposed channel is filled with earth and growing undergrowth and trees. (Robin
Atthill, Old Mendip, pages 165-177, 1971; Kenneth Clew, The Dorset and Somerset Canal, 1971).